


Alien Abduction

by Antilocapra



Series: Don't Steal From The Science Team [1]
Category: HLVRAI-Fandom, Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: Aliens, Blood and Injury, Established Relationship, Kidnapping, M/M, Memory Alteration, Military, Swearing, Torture, but y'know, kind of but not really?, they're trying their best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29216250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antilocapra/pseuds/Antilocapra
Summary: They snatched Benrey from the grocery store parking lot, and he couldn't help but be vaguely impressed that they actually managed to catch him by surprise.
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman
Series: Don't Steal From The Science Team [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2210397
Comments: 64
Kudos: 177





	1. Area 51 is Not a Proper Training Ground

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about that "competent person gets kidnapped and just wrecks the place" trope, but then I thought instead about Benrey getting kidnapped and just indulgently viewing the whole situation as a minor inconvenience. Plus, let's be real, Gordon probably needs to be incredibly violent at least once every six months or he'll start destroying furniture like an understimulated border collie.

They snatched Benrey from the grocery store parking lot, and he couldn't help but be vaguely impressed that they actually managed to catch him by surprise. Granted, he did have bulky over-ear headphones on, because the noise in stores could get to be a bit much between human voices, humming freezers, cart wheels, tinny music, and jarring storewide announcements. But Gordon had been sleeping badly, as well as wrestling with a new project at work that required a lot of late-night consultations with scientists in other timezones, and Benrey had wanted to do something nice for him to help lighten his load. He’d been so stressed lately that not even shouting at Benrey about stupid stuff had been enough to help him relax.

So, grocery shopping. It wasn’t much - they were out of milk, paper towels, pasta sauce, bread, and the weird cider that Gordon liked, and Benrey had grabbed some of the sugary cereal Joshua liked because it was on sale. Joshua wasn’t coming to visit until next month, but Benrey knew how Gordon felt about giving him the expensive cereal, so he figured he might get points for buying it on sale.

The kidnapping hadn’t been part of his plan, though. 

Benrey was halfway through the parking lot when he heard the engine roaring behind him and automatically moved out of the way. It had taken a lot of trial and error when they first got out of Black Mesa and Benrey found his way back to the Science Team - he hadn’t dealt much with cars before, or rules for crossing the street, or inside clothes versus outside clothes. (That one was still a work in progress, according to Gordon - Benrey was quite comfortable in his black sweatpants, blue hoodie, striped chullo, white socks, and brown sandals. He liked the variety after only ever having his guard uniform.) But he’d learned that people got distressed when he walked in front of their vehicles and he didn’t like the yelling, so he was fine following any road-related rules.

It didn’t seem like this car was following the rules, though. It wasn’t slowing down, for one thing. And by the sound of it, it was veering toward him.

Benrey started to turn around just as the white van screeched to a halt next to him. The side door rolled open, and two guys with fabric wrapped around the lower part of their faces lunged out and grabbed Benrey’s arms.

“Whoa, hey, what’s up?” He made sure to keep his grip on the two bags of groceries as they hauled him stumbling forward and shoved him up into the van. He sprawled across the floorboards and banged his elbow on the far door. The headphones fell off his head and bounced onto the floorboards next to Benrey’s hip. It looked like they’d torn the rear seats out, and the carpet was patchy and uneven where the footings had been.

“Hey, watch my stuff!” Benrey snapped, scrambling into a sitting position and scooping up jars of marinara that were trying to escape down the length of the van as it accelerated through the parking lot. The second guy had barely gotten back in and half-fell out the door as the van screeched around a corner. He yelled incoherently before dragging himself back inside and hauling the door closed.

Benrey settled himself with his back against the opposite door, the two bags of groceries in his lap. They were reusable bags - Gordon was big on environmental consciousness, as well as savings - and Benrey didn’t want them to get damaged. He scrabbled for the headphones and dropped them into the bag that didn’t have the milk. It wouldn’t do for condensation to get inside the ear cushions - they’d probably start growing mold or something horrible like that. 

Benrey shuddered at the thought, then stared up at the two men who had grabbed him, who were bracing themselves against the sidewalls as the van took another turn.

“So, uhhhh… you come here often?”

“What the fuck,” one of them muttered incredulously. He looked like the youngest one there, gangly and pale, with black gloves and shiny thick-soled boots. He had a bandana around his face with the design of skull teeth and lower jaw carefully rolled out, like some sort of paintball bank robber. 

“Is he tied up yet?” This voice came from the front seats. The driver glanced back and did a double take at the sight of Benrey sitting casually on the floorboards. The van wobbled, then righted itself when she spun back and faced forward again. The engine whined as she accelerated and snapped, “What the fuck are you playing at, why is he loose? Tie him up!”

“All right, all right,” one of the guys grumbled, and moved forward carefully to maintain his balance as the van took another turn. “Gimme your hands,” he said to Benrey, holding up a roll of parachute cord.

Benrey shrugged and pulled his legs up a little to support the grocery bags before holding out his hands. The guy slung several loops of cord around his wrists, tugging it tight before tying a complex knot and cutting the excess cord off. He tucked that back in the pocket of his dark coat. His eyes were a warm brown, and the beanie pulled over his short hair had the same logo as one of Gordon’s beanies, but that didn’t mean anything. Benrey idly tugged against the ropes, but quit fiddling with them when the van slowed down and entered a darker area before nosing downhill. 

They came to a gentle stop, then the guy who had almost fallen out opened the sliding door and hopped onto the concrete outside. They were in an underground parking garage, with very few other cars around and no other people in sight. Benrey cast his senses out and perceived several humans within shouting distance. He considered yelling, but decided it would take too much effort. Instead, he let the other guy haul him upright, then reached down to gather up the straps on the reusable bags before allowing himself to be led out of the van. 

The front doors opened and the driver and passenger got out. The driver was a stocky woman with a stretchy camo neck wrap she’d pulled up over her nose. Her dark hair was cut short, and she had a no-nonsense attitude about her as she stalked across three parking spots to a dark SUV. She unlocked it with a key fob, then climbed in and started it up. 

The passenger was a tall man with a serious air. He also had a neck wrap pulled over his nose, but his was plain black. The rest of him was similarly unadorned, and that and his attitude made Benrey figure he was the leader. He looked very similar to the head honcho who was always giving the rundown in first-person shooter video games, the one who turns on the player character in the final arc. Benrey dismissed him. Those guys were easy to deal with.

“C’mon,” beanie guy said, and tugged at Benrey’s elbow. Benrey followed him amiably, the grocery bags bouncing against his legs as they trotted over to the rumbling SUV. All the windows were tinted nearly black, even the windshield, and Benrey was pretty sure he’d heard somewhere that was illegal.

Actually, wasn’t kidnapping illegal? Huh. Maybe they didn’t care.

“Hey, are you, uh, are you stealing this?” Benrey asked.

Beanie guy stared down at him as they reached the SUV and the kid opened the door ahead of them. “No,” he said, almost patiently. “We’re stealing _you_.”

Benrey smacked his lips. “That’s, uh, pretty sure that’s illegal,” he said. “I’m gonna need to see some ID please. You gotta passport? Are you, uh, authorized to drive this car? ‘Scuse me?” He peered around the seat to squint at the driver, who had her head craned back to lock eyes with him. She looked confused. “License and registration please?” he said.

“What the fuck is your deal?” she said. “Did you hit your head too hard or something?”

“I don’t think our friend understands the situation,” the head honcho said from behind them, his tone silky. Oh yeah, this guy came straight out of a video game. Or a bad action movie. “Perhaps we can help him with his confusion.”

A cottony darkness dropped over Benrey’s head, and he realized one of them had put a cloth bag over his head just before a hand grabbed the back of his chullo and slammed his face into the side of the SUV. 

Benrey wasn’t human, but that still hurt. They took advantage of his reeling state and bundled him into the back seat, squished between the kid and beanie guy. He heard doors slamming closed, and then the smooth rumble of the engine as the driver backed out and drove sedately back up to street level.

It took a moment of Benrey licking blood from the inside of his mouth and swallowing it down before he could wiggle his nose without it smarting. He blinked several times, but the bag was made of dark cloth and the dimness of the SUV’s tinted interior meant Benrey couldn’t see more than a hint of light through the bag. 

His shoulder thumped against the kid, and he had pulled himself together enough by then to lean more of his weight in that direction, squashing the kid against the door.

“Stop - get -” the kid barked, and shoved back against Benrey. “Get _off_ me!”

Benrey felt beanie guy’s hand on his shoulder and he let himself be pulled back upright. His bound wrists dragged against his leg as he straightened, and he realized with a jolt that his hands were empty.

“M’bags,” he mumbled, and felt a loose tooth reposition and settle from the movement. “Where’re m’bags?”

“Forget your fucking groceries,” the kid huffed, and jabbed a sharp elbow into Benrey’s side. “You’ve got bigger problems.”

Okay, now Benrey was mad. He’d bought those groceries for him and Gordon - and Joshua, too, if they didn’t eat the sugary cereal before Gordon’s kid came to visit. And those were Gordon’s grocery bags - they were reusable and everything, not flimsy plastic or paper. They were environmentally responsible! And there was milk in there! It would go bad! 

But there had been many conversations in the Science Team about everyone’s lack of anger management. Benrey shouldn’t just snap and kill these people - they were driving somewhere, for one thing, and Benrey didn’t know how to drive anything with more than three wheels. He could pilot a Segway like nobody’s business - Black Mesa had used them to get around the long halls - but the first time he’d been in a real car was when Bubby found the Cadillac just after the Resonance Cascade. Gordon had offered to give Benrey driving lessons since then, but they always got distracted and ended up in the backseat, anyway, so he hadn’t learned much. 

So. He shouldn’t kill these people now, because then he’d have to drive the car long enough to keep it from crashing into anyone, and by the speed and the ambient noise it sounded like they were on the freeway. Benrey didn’t want to deal with that for his first solo driving experience.

Okay. Plan B: wait for them to get where they’re going, then kill them? Hmm, but then he wouldn’t know their objective. He should probably know why they thought grabbing him on a shopping trip was a good idea. Actually, he should probably find out why they grabbed him at all.

“Where’re we goin’?” Benrey asked, letting his voice slur more than he needed to. He’d watched enough movies and action shows to know it was always best to get people to underestimate you. These ones already had, obviously, but he could still push it further just for fun.

“We’re taking you somewhere we can talk without being interrupted,” the head honcho’s voice came smoothly from the front seat. “And then you’re going to tell us what happened to the Black Mesa Research Facility.”

...Yeah, all right, that sounded about typical as far as bad guy dialogue options went. Benrey smirked a little under the bag. He supposed he could play along for a bit.

“Dunno what you’re talkin’ bout,” he said. “S’no such thing as Black Mesa.”

“Maybe not anymore, but we were there!” The kid’s voice was sharp with anger. “We saw what -”

“Shut it!” The head honcho sounded pissed. 

“Get it together,” beanie guy muttered over Benrey’s head. “He’s just messing with us.”

Well, yeah, of course. They’d kidnapped an alien, what did they expect? 

Wait a minute. What _did_ they expect? Benrey thought back over the last forty minutes of his life and was forced to conclude that there was no way they suspected he was anything but human. They would never have been so brazen as to grab him in broad daylight, or so unprepared as to tie him up with _rope_ , if they’d had any idea of what he was capable of.

Okay. So. This would make things _way_ more fun.

It was only another ten minutes or so before the SUV began to slow and took a long curving turn - presumably an off-ramp. Benrey made sure to lean hard against the kid again, who sputtered and shoved ineffectively at him until the road straightened out once more. Beanie guy didn’t try to help him at all that time. Dissent in the ranks? Or maybe he just annoyed the others as much as he annoyed Benrey.

Then again, they were all about equally annoying right now. They’d left his _groceries_ in a _parking garage_. Benrey was pretty sure Gordon would say that was unsanitary.

They took a few more turns into an area that felt less and less populated, until they finally slowed down on a rough dirt - or maybe gravel - drive and stopped with a slight squeaking of brakes. 

Four doors clicked open almost at the same time, and Benrey was tugged sideways off the seat after beanie guy. The ground crunched unevenly under his sandals - gravel, then - and he took a few uncertain steps before he was pulled to a halt by beanie guy’s grip.

“We good?” Beanie guy asked.

“Sure,” the driver said after a pause, probably because she was looking for permission from the head honcho. “Let him see how fucked he is if he doesn’t give us what we want.”

The bag was tugged off Benrey’s head, and he glanced around, supremely unimpressed. they were in an industrial area, but one of the zones where the city had been trying to expand during the last economic boom and then abandoned when the money ran out. Gordon had a whole spiel about “irresponsible allocation of tax resources” but Benrey usually tuned him out when he really got going on stuff like that. 

He looked up at the building in front of them. It was two stories, with lots of windows and some heavy-duty chimneys sticking out the top. Behind it, the desert stretched away uninterrupted until it hit the mountains a few miles north. There was no snow visible this time of year, but Benrey remembered Gordon taking him to the mountains last winter, when he’d been back for less than six months and was still off-kilter enough that being in the snow was an utterly magical experience.

This situation was anything but magical. Benrey sighed and looked back at the building, twitching his nose. He could feel dried blood flaking off his face, and he hoped no one would notice that it was entirely the wrong color. He didn’t want to ruin the surprise.

“Let’s go inside,” the head honcho said, and strode into the building. 

The driver clicked the key fob and the SUV chirped. The sound echoed weirdly, and Benrey glanced over his shoulder to see several more of the same kind of vehicle in various models - some trucks, some vans, but all black with heavily-tinted windows.

“S’this a, uh, car show?” Benrey asked as beanie guy pulled him toward the building.

“Sure,” beanie guy said casually, “something like that.”

He was lying, but Benrey didn’t really care. He glanced around as soon as they got inside and sighed internally. 

There were a half-dozen soldiers standing in the atrium, with another pair at the head of the stairs that the head honcho was striding up. They moved out of the way and saluted as he passed by, and he nodded to them, but didn’t salute back.

“Aw, it’s a party,” Benrey said cheerfully as he was dragged up the steps. The soldiers were silent as they watched the little procession make its way to the second floor.

Tough crowd. Oh well. 

The head honcho led the way down the hall to a room that was bare of any furniture except a single heavy-duty metal chair that was bolted to the floor. There were no windows, but a set of industrial fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.

Benrey sighed as beanie guy and the kid shoved him down into the chair. Beanie guy pulled out his knife again and cut through the cord around Benrey’s wrists. Benrey considered grabbing the blade, but he was honestly curious about the whole setup at this point, so he figured escaping could wait.

The kid slapped two zip-ties on each of Benrey’s wrists, and beanie guy secured them while the kid zip-tied Benrey’s ankles to the chair legs. Benrey wiggled the toes of his socks, and the kid made a face and pushed himself back up to his feet.

The head honcho nodded at beanie guy.

“Go get your kit, then come back up and stand guard,” he said. Then he cast a disdainful glance at the kid and turned away from him. “You’re relieved. Get your kit, but stay downstairs.”

“What?” The kid gasped in indignation, but beanie guy hustled him out of the room.

“Bring someone else back to guard with you,” the head honcho called after him. Then he turned back to Benrey and smiled. He’d pulled his neck wrap down at one point, and now it dangled loose around his throat like a pretentious scarf. 

The driver leaned against the doorway, a semi-auto rifle in her hands. Benrey wasn’t sure when she had picked that up, but she looked completely comfortable with it.

Benrey twitched his nose again. The dry blood was itchy.

“So, uh. Gonna tell me why I’m here?”

The head honcho smirked at him. “I’m not big on philosophy,” he said, and oh great, we got a joker over here. Benrey couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

The head honcho backhanded him across the face. Fucking _rude_.

Benrey rolled his head back and glared at him. “What the _fuck_ ,” he growled.

“You don’t seem to get what’s going on here,” the head honcho said coldly. “We have questions. You have answers. If you’re lucky, you’ll make it out of here with the same number of fingers you came in with. If not…”

Benrey snorted. “Why d’you think I know anything?”

“Because you were there,” the head honcho said. “You were a security guard, tasked with rescuing several scientists. Presumably, you were successful, since your group made it out. It was the only group to make it out,” he continued, moving slowly around the room as he spoke. “And then it was as if Black Mesa Research Center never existed. Just sand and ruins, and squadrons of dead soldiers.”

Oh, so that’s what this was about. “Yo, are you part of the United States Military?” Benrey tried to pronounce it the same way Dr. Coomer always did, but apparently that was deemed too cheeky, because he got backhanded again.

Just because Benrey doesn’t die permanently doesn’t mean he can’t feel pain. This was getting irritating. 

“We were all that’s left,” the head honcho snapped, “until suddenly we weren’t. We had been replaced, shoved aside and forgotten.”

“Isn’t that normal, though, for the military?”

This time the driver stepped forward and slammed the butt of her gun down on Benrey’s hand. He yelped at the sharp pain, but nothing was broken. She retreated to her post at the door, and Benrey made hazy note of the fact that neither of them had denied his question.

“Something happened out there,” the head honcho said quietly. “Something strange. And we seem to be the only ones who remember it, besides your little group of scientists and _you_. So, if you would like to avoid more pain, you’re going to tell us everything you know.”

“Yeah, I’m not really feelin’ that,” Benrey said, and started to shift himself to lash out when he heard a familiar jingling tune.

The head honcho froze, then whipped around to look at the driver. “Please tell me that’s yours.”

She shook her head mutely just as beanie guy stepped back into the room, freshly uniformed in tactical gear and kitted out with far too many guns. There was another soldier behind him who didn’t look much older than the kid, so Benrey mentally dubbed him “the new kid.”

“Is that a phone?” Beanie guy said slowly, then blanched. “Oh shit, did we not take his phone?”

The head honcho looked furious. “It would appear not,” he gritted out. 

“Is, uh… can someone get that for me?” Benrey asked, wiggling his fingers against the armrest. “I can’t reach.”

The head honcho closed his eyes and breathed in slowly through his nose, and the ringtone cut off as the call went to voicemail.

Beanie guy looked perplexed. “Do you want me to take -”

“ _Yes_ ,” the head honcho snapped. “Go get it.”

“Okay, okay,” beanie guy said, and slung his rifle over his shoulder as he walked over to Benrey. Then he paused, looking Benrey up and down. “Where, uh…”

Benrey snorted. “Hoodie pocket,” he said, because it’s not like it mattered.

Beanie guy leaned down and reached into his pocket with one hand, then had to use his other hand to tug the phone free from the elastic straps that held it in. Gordon had found the modified hoodie for him online after he cracked his phone screen three times in two weeks by letting it slide out when he rolled around on the couch and forgot the hoodie pocket was open on both sides.

“Pretty nifty, huh?” Benrey said, and beanie guy snorted, pulling the phone free and straightening up.

It started ringing again, and beanie guy must have been really enamored with the pocket modification, because he automatically swiped his thumb across the screen to answer, then froze, his eyes wide.

“...Hello? Benrey?” Gordon’s voice was tinny through the phone speakers. 

“Gordon!” Benrey cheered. “I got stolen, bro!” Then he dissolved into a loud peal of laughter at the irony of an alien getting abducted by humans.

His laughter was muffled when the head honcho stepped up behind him and clapped a hand over Benrey’s mouth, the other hand gripping the back of his head to hold him still.

“Put it on speaker,” he said.

Beanie guy looked panicked. “Uh, this is an Android,” he said. “I have an iPhone, I don’t -”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, it’s the same symbol,” the driver snapped and snatched the phone out of his hand before tapping the screen and holding it out flat.

“- the fuck is this?” Gordon’s voice, aggressive with suppressed fear, burst loudly from Benrey’s phone.

“We are the people who are looking for answers,” the head honcho cut in smoothly. “Am I to presume that I am speaking with Dr. Gordon Freeman?”

There was a short pause, then Gordon said, “...Maybe. Who are you?”

“I’m the one who’s got your friend. And if he doesn’t answer my questions, then I’m also the one who will be coming for you.”

Whoa, hey, that’s not okay.

“I don’t think so,” Gordon said coldly. “I’m amazed you’re still alive, actually. Benrey, you okay?”

Benrey bit the head honcho’s hand, and when he jerked it away in shock, Benrey yelled “I wanna be the damsel!”

Beanie guy smashed the butt of his gun into Benrey’s face. He was getting really tired of that, especially because it made his ears ring enough that he missed part of what Gordon said next. He tuned back in to hear Gordon snarling “- won’t take long to find you. It’ll be a nice family outing. And then we’re going to finish what we started back in Black Mesa, and get rid of the United States Military once and for all.” He paused, then continued, his voice softer, “Hang tight, Benrey. We’ll be there soon. Don’t let them get too rough. I -”

The driver jabbed the screen and ended the call. “I think that’s enough,” she said coolly. 

Benrey left his head hanging, blood dripping from his nose again, and smiled down at his lap. This would be good for Gordon. He’d been too stressed lately - he needed an outlet, and the Science Team would enjoy stretching their legs. Tommy would be able to find Benrey no problem, so all he had to do was sit back, relax -

Someone pistol-whipped the side of his head.

Oh, right. He should give himself a second skin and turn off his pain receptors. That way they could beat the hell out of the decoy shell and he’d be all nice and cozy inside.

So Benrey did just that, retreating under a protective layer of himself and settling back to watch the soldiers shout at each other and swing things at him in turns, as somewhere across the city, the Science Team assembled to do what they did best: violently attack authority figures.

And then after that, someone was going to have to explain the concept of “mopping up the stragglers” to Tommy’s dad.


	2. Dinosaur Movies are Not Guidelines for Maintaining Friendships

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Science Team can go a little feral. As a treat.

In the end, they just hit him a lot. It was kind of disappointing, honestly - Benrey had been hoping for some creativity, something more than “punch with fist” or “whack with gun.” They did succeed in breaking a few fingers, several bones in his feet, some ribs, and his jaw, but those would be easily fixed, and he couldn’t feel it under his second skin, so it didn’t really matter. Hell, he was so detached from his external inputs that he might have dozed off if he weren’t so interested in what the Science Team would do when they got there.

He didn’t have long to wait. Tommy was close enough to what Benrey was that they could sense each other within a limited distance - say, a planetary hemisphere. So, give Gordon time to call Tommy and explain everything, call Dr. Coomer and Bubby, explain everything again, find some firepower, hopefully stop for smoothies on the way, add five, carry the two…

They should be arriving right about... _now_.

He was disconnected enough that he didn’t hear an engine approaching - and maybe there hadn’t been one, maybe they had walked, or flown in or something. They already survived _him_ when he was juiced up and driven half-mad by Xen’s atmosphere - as far as he was concerned, they could do anything.

No engine noise meant that the roar of the rocket launcher was a surprise. That was happening a lot today. At least this was a pleasant surprise - for Benrey, that is. For the soldiers, though, not so much.

He opened his eyes, then he opened his eyes again just as the rocket hit the first floor. There was a thunderous boom, and the walls shook as the ordnance exploded. Benrey could hear glass shattering in the windowpanes and ringing in shards on the concrete floors. The soldiers were yelling at each other, and a mix of dust and smoke wafted up the stairs.

“What the fuck is this?” The head honcho roared, turning on Benrey from his position near the door. He hadn’t been doing much of the hands-on work - people like him rarely did - but now he looked furious and advanced on Benrey with intent.

Benrey grinned lopsidedly through bloodied teeth, still detached from his pain receptors. “Whuh, y’didn’t think they were actually coming?”

“You think _this_ is your scientist friends?” The head honcho laughed incredulously. “No, no, a bunch of lab rats don’t do shit like this. What, did you get your infiltrator buddy back down from Canada?”

“Whuh - who - ohhhh shit, you know Forzen?” Benrey said. “Huh - what’s he up to these days?”

“Forz- What? Is that what you call him?”

Machine gun fire rattled downstairs, and the soldiers stationed on the ground floor must have regrouped - Benrey could hear them calling back and forth and shouting about grenades or some shit.

“S’a screen name, bro, we used to - used to game, play games all day erryday, we used to be buds, but he got into the military n’shit, got into the bootboy lifestyle n’I didn’t like it, but he -”

The head honcho stepped forward and snapped his hand up to point his pistol over Benrey’s shoulder. As soon as the gun was level with Benrey’s ear, he fired - and Benrey hadn’t been expecting that, he’d had his hearing dialed up a touch to track the movement of the Science Team breaching the back of the building, so the gunshot right next to his ear was deafening, and it _hurt_. 

He yelped and jerked in the chair, but the zip-tie restraints kept him from falling out as he gasped, mouth open and dripping blood from his teeth and his nose, dazedly struggling to reel his senses back to a manageable level.

There was movement around him that he slowly began to track. The other soldiers in the room were scrambling to set up a perimeter with only four people - three if you didn’t count the head honcho, and Benrey didn’t. The gunfire from the first floor was getting more scattered, with longer pauses in between barrages. That probably meant the forces downstairs were losing. Benrey grinned to himself and closed his eyes, his head still hanging over his lap.

The head honcho was yelling - at him, at the other three soldiers, who knew - but Benrey tuned him out once he heard the driver remind him they had limited ammunition in the room. She sounded pissed that the head honcho had wasted a bullet shooting at nothing for a power play. More dissent in the ranks? Fine by Benrey. He closed his eyes and focused, casting his senses out for a group of familiar beings, the collections of electrical signals, body heat, heartbeats, voices, scents, and footsteps that made up the people he had come to call his friends.

Dr. Coomer and Bubby were still on the ground floor, and Benrey could hear them bickering good-naturedly as they worked their way through various rooms, rooting out pockets of soldiers and obliterating them.

“I’m just saying, you got to punch the tops off the cars, and I got to use the rocket launcher,” Bubby was explaining. “If you got to use the rocket launcher, too, what would I have?”

“Bubby, my dear, you would have _me_!”

“Not the point, Harold.”

“Well, you could always immolate something - if you’re feeling antsy, that is!”

“Hmm...you know what, I think I will. And I’m going to start with those suspiciously-stacked-together crates.”

“What a wonderful idea!”

Benrey turned his senses away from the roar of flames, Bubby’s cackling laughter, and the screams of the three soldiers who had been lying in wait, but were now on fire. He cast his perception further around the building and noticed that Tommy and Gordon were on the second floor, battering at the one locked door that two of the guards had managed to secure twenty feet down the hall. They had come in the back way, utilizing a fire escape to get up and swing in through a broken window. Benrey could smell blood from the soldiers they had shot on their way in, and smiled.

“Fuck this,” he heard Gordon snap. “Give me the C4.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Freeman,” Tommy chirped. He seemed to have a lot more hardware than normal for this kind of situation. “How - how much do you want?”

“All of it.”

“That’s - that would blow up the whole building, Mr. Freeman. How about this much?”

“Fucking - _fine_ ,” Gordon growled, and Benrey heard the wet slap of the plasticine on the door. By the sound and scent of it, it was way more than necessary to crater the door. Honestly, they could probably kick it down with a bit more effort. But where was the fun in that?

“Give ‘em hell, Gordon,” Benrey muttered under his breath.

“What? Do you have something to say?” The head honcho grabbed Benrey’s hair and yanked his head up. The chullo was somewhere on the ground - Benrey was pretty sure one of the soldiers had stomped on it at one point. 

Benrey sneered at the head honcho, who was looking wild-eyed now that his carefully crafted mission was coming apart so spectacularly. 

“Shouldn’t’ve fucked with the Science Team,” Benrey said, and yeah, okay, he’d timed it when he heard the detonator click down the hall, so as soon as the words left his mouth, the open doorway filled with the fiery light of an explosion and the walls rattled again. The new kid actually fell over - he’d been closest to the door, and jerked away when fire bloomed in the hall. Most of the blast was funneled down the hallway, and Benrey heard shouts from the stairwell down to the first floor. He didn’t hear anything from the two soldiers who had been guarding the blocked door, but a moment later he heard the crunch of Gordon’s boot stomping on a human head, so they’d probably been taken down by the blast.

Measured footsteps advanced down the hallway toward the room Benrey and his captors were in. He wiggled a little in anticipation, but tried to school his expression when the head honcho looked over at him, then stepped behind his chair and gently pressed the muzzle of his pistol against Benrey’s temple.

A grenade pin pinged in the stairwell, and Benrey dialed his hearing back down to avoid most of the concussive blast - so he also missed most of Bubby’s yelling, even though it was much closer than it had been a minute ago.

“-t me down! I wanna kill those guys!”

“Well, if you insist. My Rocket-Legs need to recharge before another jump like tha- hello, Gordon!”

“Hey Dr. Coomer,” Gordon said from further down the hall on the left. Bubby went cackling down the stairs on the right, firing off potshots at retreating soldiers. Neither group was visible through the doorway, but Benrey figured even the puny human ears in the room could hear the Science Team outside.

The new kid and beanie guy shuffled into defensive positions near the doorway. Since the room was stripped bare except for the chair Benrey was tied to, they had nothing for cover. Sucks to be them.

There was no warning for the human soldiers - one moment they were preparing for a logical assault, and the next moment they were being charged from two directions by illogical foes who fired indiscriminately and didn’t seem concerned about hitting each other, either. Not that they ever did, somehow. Not even Benrey knew how that worked. Some people are just lucky.

In a flurry of movement and a volley of shots, the new kid and beanie guy went down. The driver fired off two quick shots, then the fist on one of Dr. Coomer’s Extendo-Arms rocketed across the room and punched her in the face so hard that her neck snapped. As he reeled the length of his arm back in, her body dropped in a heap at Benrey’s feet, and he looked up at the crowded doorway and beamed.

“Heyyyy, friends!”

He would have continued, but the head honcho whacked him with the pistol, then pressed it back against his temple, crouching a little to put more of his body behind Benrey.

“There must be a misunderstanding,” he said in a poor approximation of his previous silky tones, obviously shaken up by the events of the last few minutes. “We thought we were the last of the military, but obviously we were wrong -”

“Is this guy for real?” Gordon snapped. “Tommy, could you…?”

“Sure thing, Mr. Freeman!” Tommy said, and shot the head honcho over Benrey’s shoulder.

The head honcho swore and collapsed, his pistol skittering away across the floor after dropping from his now-useless grip. Tommy had shot him high in the chest, and Gordon stalked forward and reached down to grab his leg and drag him around in front of Benrey.

“Do you want to join in here,” Gordon asked, gesturing to the head honcho, “or are you pushing this damsel thing all the way?”

“Welll…” Benrey drawled, watching the head honcho’s confusion with delight. “I _guess_ I can finish him off.” Then he kicked his feet out to snap the zip ties on his ankles and stood up.

He didn’t bother getting out of the metal chair - he just ripped the bolts out of the floor by straightening his legs and pulling it up with him, and monitored the head honcho’s growing horror with unbridled joy.

“What the - what the fuck -” 

“I told you, bro,” Benrey said. “You shouldn’t’ve fucked with the Science Team.” He effortlessly popped the wrist zip ties, then swung the mangled chair around in front of him and crushed it between his hands, crinkling it like an aluminum can and making the metal screech and grind in protest.

Bubby stomped through the doorway from the hall and barked, “What is _taking so long_ \- oh.” He kicked one of the bodies out of the way and stood next to Dr. Coomer, who was smiling dreamily into the middle distance. Tommy was watching the head honcho cringe on the floor, and Gordon was watching Benrey, an unreadable expression on his face.

“Stop playing with your food and kill him already,” Bubby groaned. “It’s not like he even actually hurt you.”

Benrey shrugged and dropped the facade of his second skin, letting the impression of broken bones, bruises, and lacerations fade away into nothing. The head honcho wheezed in shock. 

“Who - what _are_ you?” he gasped.

“Benrey, what the fuck, you’re bleeding!” Gordon said sharply, and made an aborted movement toward Benrey.

“Huh?”

“Your - your face, man, and your head,” Gordon gestured at his own face, seemingly unconcerned that he was pointing with the hand that currently held a pistol. 

“Ohhhh right. That was from before I, uh, I remembered I could just...not do that.”

The concern on Gordon’s face morphed into quiet fury. “So they actually _did_ hurt you.”

“Ehh, not really,” Benrey said, and concentrated for a moment. He could feel the swelling around his nose go down, the heat of other abrasions fading. The dried blood would need to be manually washed off, but that could happen later. “See? All better.” Benrey spread his arms, one hand still holding the mangled ball of metal that had once been a chair.

“Yeah,” Gordon said coldly. “That’s not good enough.” And he shot the head honcho in the face.

“Aw,” Benrey pouted into the fading echoes of the gun’s retort. “ _I_ wanted to do that.”

“Too bad,” Gordon said, holstering his pistol as he stepped over the twitching body. “Are you okay? Like, actually okay?”

“No,” Benrey said, reaching for him. “Our groceries are in a parking garage and the milk is probably bad by now. I mean, I’d still drink it, but, uh -”

“For fuck’s sake,” Gordon said fondly, then he cupped Benrey’s face in both hands and kissed him, hard. Benrey grinned into the kiss, dropping the remains of the chair and reaching up to grip Gordon’s arms, running his thumbs up and down the insides of his wrists in an attempt to be comforting. 

“M’fine,” he said when Gordon pulled back.

“You taste like weird alien blood,” Gordon told him. “That’s not fine. But don’t - don’t worry about the groceries, we can get more. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Benrey glanced over Gordon’s shoulder to see that Tommy had pushed Dr. Coomer and Bubby out of the room, and was now leaning against the door jam so he could keep an eye on everyone. Somewhere down the hall, something burst into flames, and Bubby whooped.

“M’fine,” Benrey said again, and ran his hands down Gordon’s arms, over his shoulders, down his sides. “Are _you_ okay? That was a lot of, uh, a lot of shooting.”

“Psh, as if these idiots could hit the broad side of a barn,” Gordon snorted, and nudged the head honcho’s corpse with his foot. “What was their deal, anyway?”

“Leftovers from Black Mesa,” Benrey said, and glanced around before spotting his chullo where it had been tossed by one of the soldiers. He trotted over and scooped it up, jamming it back on his head. “They saw some alien shit and wanted to know what the deal was. Guess they’ll never know.”

“Oh, geez, I - I’m sorry, Benrey,” Tommy said sheepishly from the doorway. “I thought my dad had - he said he cleaned everything up.”

“Obviously not everything,” Gordon said disdainfully, kicking the head honcho’s body again. “This was, what, two dozen soldiers? Maybe check in with him and make sure he didn’t miss anything else important.”

Tommy nodded. “Y-yeah, I’ll do that!” Then he looked down the hall and frowned. “Dr. Coomer, don’t - I don't think you should be making a daisy chain out of those grenades!”

“A stun grenade, also known as a flash grenade, flashbang, thunderflash, or sound bomb, is a less-lethal explosive device used to temporarily disorient an enemy’s senses. It is designed to produce - help me, Tommy!”

Tommy had started forward, but stopped and squeezed his eyes shut, covering his ears and wincing as a blinding flash of light threw the hallway into sharp relief, followed by a concussive bang. Benrey was facing the hall, so when he saw Tommy stop he darted over and clapped his hands over Gordon’s ears, and put more hands over his eyes for good measure.

The flashbang still sent them all reeling, and was followed by a dusty chaos of yelling and accusations for a minute before it was decided that Bubby and Dr. Coomer would collect any leftover ammo from the soldiers’ stash, while Tommy went to bring the helicopter around. Because apparently they’d brought a helicopter.

“Where did you even _get_ all this stuff?” Benrey asked, plucking at the strap of a rifle slung across Gordon’s back that he hadn’t even seen him use. 

“Oh, y’know, around,” Gordon said, then distracted Benrey by kissing him again. Benrey went a little melty - he always did when Gordon kissed him, especially when it was just a touch aggressive like this, possessiveness bordering on desperation. When they broke apart, Gordon asked him a question, but Benrey’s brain was still full of fluffy pink and blue clouds and he couldn’t comprehend the words.

“Whuh? Come again please?”

“Maybe later.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” Gordon sighed. “I asked why you didn’t just leave. You could have walked out of here at any time.”

Benrey shrugged. “They were...they had to be taken care of. Woulda just...kept comin’ after us, now they knew where we live. Plus, you’ve been all, all stressed and tense lately. Needed to have some fun and, and relax with your buds, hang out with your bros. So.”

Gordon stared at him for a moment, arms still tight around Benrey’s back. “Are you saying that… Benrey, is this like when the zookeepers give pumpkins to the tigers? Is this some kind of habitat enrichment?”

“No-uh, it’s the - like the goat in Jurassic Park, so the dinosaurs can eat something new.”

Gordon burst into wheezing laughter. “That’s the _same thing_! Oh my god, this would be _so_ disturbing if it wasn’t so - so weirdly sweet...” He dropped his head onto Benrey's shoulder and trailed off into helpless giggles.

Helicopter blades whirred overhead and descended to the ground outside. Something downstairs exploded, but it was a small explosion, so it was probably fine. 

“Okay,” Gordon sighed, pulling himself back together and wiping his eyes. “We should probably go home. Actually, we should blow this place up, and _then_ we should go home.”

Benrey latched onto Gordon’s shoulders and let his knees buckle slightly, dragging down on his grip. “Carry me?” he asked.

“What? No!” Gordon had automatically tightened his grip on Benrey’s back when his weight dropped, but now he switched to pushing him away.

“Please? Pretty please? I did it for you last time.”

“That was - that was different and you know it - Benrey stop, I’m gonna fall over!” Gordon was laughing again, and Benrey grinned.

“Catch me please,” he said, and he turned sideways and hopped up against Gordon’s torso. Sure enough, Gordon’s arms came up and caught his weight, and Gordon staggered a little trying to adjust to the new center of gravity.

“Benrey, what the fuck, this is ridiculous, you’re _fine_!”

“I’m the damsel, please and thank you.”

“Is this revenge? Is this revenge for last time, oh my god -”

“Hey! Lovebirds!” Bubby’s voice echoed up the stairwell. “Let’s fucking _go_!”

“We’re _coming_ , Jesus fuck -” Gordon started stomping out of the room, grumbling to himself, still holding Benrey in his arms. “If I trip on the stairs, I _will_ drop you,” he warned.

“You won’t trip,” Benrey said smugly.

“Oh? And why’s that?”

“Because you’d drop me.”

“Fucking _sap_ ,” Gordon said in wonder, and tilted his head down to kiss Benrey again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on Tumblr @Antilocaprine

**Author's Note:**

> I promise I am working on _Some Stars_ \- the next chapter is about half done - but I've also been taking bricks to the head as far as inspiration goes and now suddenly I'm working on four fic ideas at the same time. I may have a problem...
> 
> Come yell at me on Tumblr @Antilocaprine


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